Honesty
by Atalan
Summary: Character sketch of Takaya, reflecting on recent events in his life and his relationship with Naoe. Set between episodes 6 and 7 of the TV anime series. "... if he's honest, which he rarely is, but it's dark outside and there's no-one here to impress..."


**Honesty**  
  
  
Takaya doesn't often stop to feel sorry for himself, but for some reason this is one of those times. Perhaps it's to do with how the door clicks shut and only silence rushes out to meet him.  
  
The apartment isn't dark: his sister has left the light on to welcome him. He knows that there'll be food in the kitchen, cold but covered neatly and ready to eat. There always is when he says he'll be home late. She waited up for him a couple of times, until some instinct told her that he'd rather have his return unmarked. She's never asked him what he does, which is just as well, because he can hardly tell her he's been helping Naoe exorcise vengeful spirits, can he? He pulls off his shoes and slips his feet into the fresh pair of slippers waiting for him.  
  
He'd say she'll make a good housewife one day, but he can't help thinking of that as an insult. His mother was a "good housewife", and she never stood up to his father, nor shielded her children from his anger; only cooked and cleaned and obeyed his whims.  
  
Miya isn't like that - he hopes - but she cooks for him because she can, because she cares, because it's her half of the bargain. He's the adult: he has to worry about bills and taxes and the welfare system's well-meaning interference in their life. He got them out of the hell that their father created for them, and now he shields her - so that she gets to be the child for a bit longer - and she repays him by caring.  
  
Takaya had to grow up too fast, and what makes it worse is that he knows it. He isn't blind, nor the type to take the blame on himself for his father's cruelty. He knows how families are supposed to work, and he resents it even as he tells himself they're fine as they are, him and Miya.  
  
The kitchen light is on, too, although at its dimmest setting. There's a tray waiting on the table, covered in a cloth; he lifts it and sees cold cooked rice, pickled vegetables, some grilled chicken. More like a lunch than their dinner, and he realises she must have fixed it specially, in addition to whatever she ate. He'd thought he was too tired to eat, but catching the piquant scent of the vegetables changes his mind. As Miya probably knew it would.  
  
Takaya eats slowly, his mind turning unwillingly back on the last few hours. Haunted faces of furious ghosts hover behind his eyes. It was a hard night's work. The spirits fought bitterly, and it took all of their combined strength to perform the exorcisms again and again.  
  
He's starting to be afraid now - if he's honest, which he rarely is, but it's dark outside and there's no-one here to impress - after one close encounter too many. He's come to accept that he can't truly die, that some part of him will go on to another life. But if he dies, he dies as Ougi Takaya. He'd leave Miya with no-one to protect her. Even if he gained another body, he'd have no way of letting her know it was him. And that scares him.  
  
He's thought of asking Naoe to look out for her if anything happens; but he doesn't think Naoe really sees Miya's brother when their eyes meet, or even Takaya, high school student and friend of Yuzuru. It seems as though Naoe sees only Kagetora, or a shadow of him: Kagetora, whom he serves, protects and...  
  
Takaya shies away from finishing the thought, still not really sure what it is he sees in Naoe's dark eyes, and distracted by the twinge of bitterness it brings. There was something that drew him to Naoe from the start, even though the man infuriates him with his half-truths. There's something that makes him comfortable with the other man, that he struggles to hide under rudeness even as he tries to find ways to deepen it. But now he wonders if that link isn't between him and Naoe at all, but between Naoe and Kagetora, and he's beginning to resent Kagetora as if his past self were a rival.  
  
Naoe always speaks to him so formally, so politely, and he kind of likes it but he also thinks it's a shield that Naoe hides behind, and he wants to know why. Sometimes it seems as if the man uses Kagetora both as his reason for caring (it _is_ something deeper than concern for a leader, isn't it?) and his excuse for keeping a distance.  
  
He wishes he could see Naoe's control _break_, just for a second. He wants to know what's really behind that calm façade. He's as rude as he dares to the other man, but everything he says is absorbed without comment, accepted as a teenager's directionless anger or spite, and Naoe never rises to the bait. Takaya keeps trying, but he's starting not to like the disappointment that he sees flickering through those polite eyes, and that only makes him angrier.  
  
He wishes Naoe would speak to him as Takaya, just Takaya, just once. Address him as an older man would a younger, or snap back a retort to an undeserved insult, or drop that ever-so-careful _san_ from the end of his name. But it's like Naoe wants him to be Kagetora and dreads it at the same time, like Naoe is drawn to Kagetora and yet keeps always a certain distance away, and Takaya is so confused that sooner or later he has to stop thinking about it.  
  
He doesn't know what it is he wants from Naoe, though there are moments sometimes in the darker corners of his dreams when he thinks he feels... something beyond annoyance or respect or even friendship. But then, those dreams are touched with fire and darkened with blood, and when he awakens he tries to forget as soon as possible.  
  
What he does know is that in the midst of all the strangeness this summer, he's found something in Naoe that gives him comfort, and he's had little enough of that in his life. It scares him in a way, because he doesn't want to forget how to stand on his own, but he can't seem to stop seeking more.  
  
He's done with the food. It was good of Miya to fix it for him; he'll try and remember to thank her for it in the morning. Not that she expects thanks - she knows he appreciates it - but Takaya is not his father and he likes to remember that as often as possible. As he puts the plate in the sink and turns on the water, he remembers that Naoe wants him to go somewhere in a couple of days, and he wonders if Miya will be alright on her own. There's someone Naoe wants him to meet, although the older man won't say who (or what), and Takaya has to admit he's curious.  
  
It's only a few days, after all, Takaya thinks as he reaches for the light switch. And he'll be with Naoe, so what harm could come to him?   
  
  
- end -  
  
  
AN: I don't know anything about Takaya's father and family life other than what's implied in the anime, and I'm aware that the vast backstory of the novels probably contradicts what I've come up with here. Consider it solely animeverse, something of a bridge between the second and third story arcs in the series. ^_^   
  
  
  



End file.
